


While I Live (and Until I Die)

by florencedrunk



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: (expect for a few fix-its), Canon Compliant until CA:CW, F/M, M/M, Maximoff siblings feels, Multi, Romani Pietro Maximoff, Romani Wanda Maximoff, Telepathic Wanda Maximoff, Wanda-centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-13
Updated: 2017-03-13
Packaged: 2018-10-04 07:21:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10271285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/florencedrunk/pseuds/florencedrunk
Summary: The life and trials of Wanda Maximoff, from Sokovia to Wakanda.She feels it like it's her own death: the rush of adrenaline, the bullets tearing through flesh, the fear and the nothingness envelopinghim.Her chest explodes with rage and sorrow and all those other feelings one should hope to never know. She screams a scream that nobody hears, and the world goes red with magic.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Title comes from [this quote](http://static.comicvine.com/uploads/original/13/135481/3772182-7206985327-Scarl.png) uttered by Wanda in the comics.

She feels it like it's her own death: the rush of adrenaline, the bullets tearing through flesh, the fear and the nothingness enveloping _him_. Her chest explodes with rage and sorrow and all those other feelings one should hope to never know. She screams a scream that nobody hears, and the world goes red with magic.

It starts in her lungs, and the words crawl all the way up to the tip of her tongue, fighting their way out of her lips, aching to be spoken. They taste cold and sweet and, in that moment, Wanda knows she could just will the world out of existence, if she wanted. And she almost does.

Moments, hours, minutes later, red eyes are staring into her own, and a hollow heart is cracking in her fist, cold metal becoming dust as she squeezes it. She's never felt so powerful, or so helpless.

She doesn't speak the words, tries to pretend she never heard them. But they are still there, carved on the inside of her skull, waiting for the right time to tempt her again.

 

* * *

 

_Chaos is a song that lurks in the back of your head. Be careful, or you might find yourself whistling its tune without knowing._

 

* * *

 

The Mansion is shiny and white and new, built by the man responsible for her parents' death and for the salvation of humanity as well as its endangerment in the first place, filled with people who don't want to be there, but have nowhere else to go.

One of the many perks of being able to read other people's mind is that it gives her perspective: she knows her fear is everyone's fear, and that she's not the only one constantly second guessing herself, not the only one who lies down for hours, thinking of the things she could've or shouldn't have done, and not the only one waking up every day with one thought waiting for her to open her eyes.

 _I should have saved him,_ she hears herself thinking, and the words echo from her mind to several others all around her. But they sound different every time, as if they had a different flavor depending on who thought them.

She knows she's not alone in what she feels, but she's the only one to feel in the exact way she feels. That's true for everyone. Not two people feel in the same way: therefore, everyone is alone.

Not that that is news, of course. Even before S.H.I.E.L.D. — or Hydra, if there was ever a difference between the two — put this immense power inside of her, she always knew what Pietro was thinking. But that was different, that worked both ways. Until it didn't, that is.

Now, she tries not to snoop around in other people's heads too much, but it's hard to resist when everything seems so desperate to be heard. From time to time, she catches sight of empty ballrooms and crowded battlefields, alien landscapes and lovers lost in the mist of time, and curiosity has the best of her.

In Clint's mind, she sees the moment she became an Avenger. She doesn't even recognize herself, at first: she's so much younger, in his eyes — not only younger than she is now, but even younger than she was back then. She hears Clint saying the words the way he remembers saying them, and feels what he felt as he said them. He could and should have hated her, feared her. Instead, he trusted her. She caused so much pain, so much destruction, and Clint still decided to give her a second chance.

 

* * *

 

There's a ballerina living inside Natasha's mind. She has red on her head and on her lips and on her hands. She has never actually existed. She's just a ghost. A ghost of what she could've been, of what _they_ turned her into, of the thing she's most scared of.

Wanda only knows this because she's seen it, but Natasha never lets it show, never lets herself be anything more (or less) than the Black Widow. She's the Black Widow while they train, and while they're on a mission, and when she smiles to Clint as she eats all his popcorn on movie nights.

 

* * *

 

Riley's name rolls off Sam's tongue like it's the easiest thing in the world, like it doesn't feel like there's a knife twisting in his stomach, or like a thousand shards of glass are buried under his skin. Wanda wishes she could do the same — not equating her brother's existence with his death, finding a way to think of him that doesn't hurt, laughing when she says his name, like she used to.

She tries to do what Sam does, and tells Clint that Pietro loved to hear her playing the guitar, and that he used to sing along (rather badly) to whatever pop song she was obsessed with that week, and that he danced too, sometimes. She tells Natasha of all the grandmother's recipe, and that Pietro was always the one who remembered all the ingredients. She tells Steve he used to end in fights all the time, always counting on her to save his ass if things got too serious.

One day, Sam says something about Riley — something silly, something she can't even remember now, like what his favorite candy bar was or what TV show he really hated — and Wanda just responds with a story about Pietro. They end up talking and laughing together until 3 in the morning, and it's the best she's felt in a long, long time.

 

* * *

 

It's Wanda's birthday and nobody knows. And even if they this, would that make a difference? She never cared for birthdays. The only thing she liked about them as a kid is that she shared them with Pietro.

It's Pietro's birthday and she's the only one who knows. Or so she thinks.

The muffin smells of chocolate and magic and appears with a flash of golden light on her desk. A green flame is consuming the wick of the red candle, and she knows immediately who it's from. She wonders if Jane was the one who put him up to this, or how he even knew that it was today. But it tastes really good — divine, actually.

 

* * *

 

She sees the bomb and sees Steve, and, for some reason, Steve doesn't react.

Her hands move before her brain can register what is happening: streaks of red energy emerge from the ground, enveloping the disfigured man. She pushes him up into the air, away from the people, away from Steve. But something goes wrong.

The force field dissolves and the bomb goes off, exploding through a building. Wanda feels dozens of lives disappearing from the Earth, burned from existence as they scream in terror.

 

* * *

 

_Chaos is a lovely companion that never leaves your side. Listen, as it whispers into your ear the names of all the lives gone because of you._

 

* * *

 

Steve thinks of himself as something other than Captain America. He wears the name like a mask, and the mask like a shield, and uses the shield to distance himself from the ideas that name stands for. Why he does it, Wanda's not sure: does he still consider himself unworthy to be called a hero? Or is he sick to be a symbol?

Could she do the same? No... the Scarlet Witch is not a hero. She's a barely a person, barely more than the sum of her mistakes. The others talk and talk and talk, and all she can think of is how easily she could end. This time, she wouldn't destroy the world. She would make herself vanish — if only the words would come to her.

Secretary Ross shows them images — New York, Washington D.C., Sokovia, Lagos — but she doesn't understand why. Does he think that have forgotten? Does he think they don't care about what's left behind? Doesn't he know that they see those exact images every time they close their eyes?

She looks at the stack of paper the man gives her, at the name of her country on the front page, and then at her own name, beside Clint's and above Steve's. Tony has already signed, obviously, and she knows that Rhodey and Vision are thinking of doing the same. Natasha will make the more sensible choice, she always does.

She doesn't blame them, but thinks back at her grandmother's stories. The ones she told Wanda and Pietro, and then made them swear to never forget. They are all faded now, those memories, buried in ash and rubble, but she still remembers: her grandmother didn't like lists, and neither does she.

 

* * *

 

When they were ten years old, Wanda and Pietro spent two days hiding under a bed, waiting for a shell to kill them. When they got out of what remained of their home, she knew what the two things she hated the most in the world were: Tony Stark and closed spaces.

Right now, Tony Stark isn't so high on that list — although, she has to admit, he's higher than he was last week. Closed spaces, on the other hand, are still right on top. The Mansion is far from being a closed space, so why does it feel just like she's still under that bed?

Then again, fear is not supposed to be logical, she knows that. Maybe that's what makes Vision so different from humans — he's too logical to be afraid. And that's where they meet, really — the android striving for humanity and the woman who lost hers when great power was thrust upon her: right in the middle, longing for what they lack, held back by what they are.

And now he is the one holding her back, the one keeping her trapped.

 

* * *

 

Clint has his eyes fixed on the road and his hands steady on the wheel, mind racing from possibility to possibility, only occasionally passing through glimpses of red hair and a cunning smile eerily similar to that of a shark.

In the back of the van, Scott is dreaming of Captain America in ways that should be surprising, but really aren't.

Wanda tightens her fists and feels the energy radiating from her palms. _Conflict breeds catastrophe,_ Vision's voice repeats for the hundredth time in her head. She wishes she could doubt his words, but can't give herself the privilege of believing him to be right.

 

* * *

 

They put her in a cell far away from the others, tie her hands behind her back and put a collar around her neck. She could put up a fight, she could escape. And then what? There's no way she could save the others. And even if she did escape, where would she go? She's tired, so she lets herself be taken, shows everyone how non-threatening she is, and waits for the man himself to show up.

Wanda has been inside Tony's head exactly twice. Before she really knew him, when she unleashed his worst fear upon him, and as they fought at the airport. Both times, his opinion of hers wasn't much different: he sees her as a weapon, as something to contain, control, study.

He gets to escape his suit, walk away from his power, but Wanda's power is what she is, and she will never be able to give them up — not that she thinks she would, given the chance. Maybe he's right, maybe she's addicted, but maybe he is too. Maybe that's why he's so scared of her.

 

* * *

 

_Chaos is an old friend, always ready to welcome you with open arms. Do not embrace it, for it has a dagger in its hand, and won't hesitate to bury it in your back._

 

* * *

 

Steve comes for her first. He's not wearing his uniform and doesn't have his shield with him. He frees her and hugs her and then they make their way up to where the others are kept.

Waiting for them on the roof there's a sleek black plane, courtesy of the new King of Wakanda.

 

* * *

 

The Palace is old and new at the same time, and the most beautiful place Wanda has ever seen. Not all the people who are there chose to be, but they all chose to stick together.

Natasha is there too, and with her came all the names inside her head — all regularly polished and displayed just under the surface, ready to be used. They are not masks or hiding places. They are all her, or parts of her, at least — like shards of a broken mirror that can never return to its original form.

The train together, just like they did at the Mansion: the gym smells of sweat and electricity and magic and of those gross chips Clint eats as he watches them from above, shouting instructions and cheering for one or the other. When Sam joins them, he brings Steve and Bucky with him. Scott is there too, but no one sees him, most of the time.

 

* * *

 

If Natasha's mind is a labyrinth of mirrors, designed especially for getting lost into, walking into Bucky's is like going through quicksand: one wrong move and she'd plummet to a cold, dark room, strapped to a chair, screaming loudly and uselessly. It's nothing she hasn't lived herself, though. Maybe that's why he's letting her dig into his memory, mending the loose ends. They are both, after all, children of Hydra.

She sees pain and misery and heavy metal arm with a red star on it. It shines in the darkness, and somehow sucks all the light, too. She sees Zola and Karpov and Pierce, and tastes the salty tears as he remembers them. She sees Siberia, then and now, and Wakanda — cold against hot, wild against warm. She sees his new arm, light and powerful and just as much a weapon as it is a prosthesis, and she sees Steve.

Because if Bucky's mind is a desert full of quicksand, or an ocean full of whirlpools, then Steve is a lifeline, a rock in the midst of unstable ground: a night spent around a fire in the middle of a forest somewhere in Europe; a bar in the middle of the war, and the most important choice of his life; the Cyclone— no, a train, and the last time he saw him.

Then, she sees Bucky's worst fear: the Winter Soldier. He fears him not because of what he is — the assassin, the weapon, the puppet — but because of all the things that he isn't. Because of all the things that were stripped away from him to make him the assassin, the weapon, the puppet. Because of the uncertainty of ever being able to regain it all.

 

* * *

 

Vision is the one who finds them. He uses the Mind Stone, and Wanda feels him getting nearer and nearer with each day that passes. T'Challa has his army ready, but the android arrives in a way no one was expecting.

She knows that's she's asleep, and she knows that she's not dreaming. She sees him, golden cape waving in a wind that's not there, and knows that they are inside her head — and inside his too, in a way.

They don't talk — can't, don't need to. They kiss, instead, and Wanda feels more power inside of herself than ever before. It's like they've finally torn down that barrier that kept them apart. Did Vision discover the secret to humanity, or did Wanda finally lose all that was human in herself?

 

* * *

 

T'Challa is already on the balcony when she gets there, elbows resting on the railing, eyes cast towards the horizon, where the sun is coming up. The first morning light illuminates the forest and the stone panther roaring at the drowning moon. He doesn't even turn when he hears the sliding door opening and closing. They don't talk, looking instead at the orange-pink-blue sky up above them.

For as long as Wanda has known him, T'Challa's mind has been filled with images of his father. In the start, it was his dead body lying in the middle of a collapsed room, with the only audible sound being his own useless pleas. These days, it's the time he put the crown of Wakanda on T'Challa's head as a joke, their first journey together, and all the tedious ones that came after. They are all small moments, all veiled by a thin layer of tears, but they all show what an extraordinary man T'Chaka was, and how much T'Challa has to live up to. (If you ask Wanda, he's been doing a pretty good job so far.)

She closes her eyes and inhales the smell of the world outside the Palace. Birds flying and trees breathing, blossoms seeing the sun for the first time, and a river running free through the earth a few miles away. She feels it all and gives back all she has in herself.

Sadness, so much sadness: a rope around her lungs, coming undone as she cries, exploding in the sky like red fireworks. Happiness, so much more than she thought was possible, bursting out of her chest like a fire, warm and caring. And then, a whole lot of other feelings, unnamed and inexplicable — some good, some bad, all hers. She watches them all rage in the sky and wonders if she'll ever find a way to explain how she feels. She probably never will, but that's fine. Nobody would be able to understand, anyway.

 

* * *

 

_Chaos is the Big Bad Wolf, the Raven, and the Scorpion. It's Veles, it's Loki, and it's Anansi. It's a trickster, and a mirror: never stare at it for too long, or it'll stare back into you with your own eyes._

**Author's Note:**

> If you enjoyed reading this fic, please consider reblogging it on [tumblr](http://florencedrunk.tumblr.com/post/160726698582/while-i-live-and-until-i-die-the-life-and)!


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